Systems and methods for automatic formatting of images for media assets based on user profile

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided herein for personalizing images that correspond to a media asset identifier by using user profile information. As an example, the television series “Community” has several actors, such as Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. Poster art developed by an editor of “Community” may include an image that portrays each of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. In order to personalize the image, control circuitry may determine which actor(s) the user prefers, and crop out only those actors in the poster art to create a personalized image. As an example, if the user prefers Joel McHale, control circuitry may crop out the portrayal of Joel McHale and use only that portion of the image to display next to other text describing “Community.”

BACKGROUND

As media guidance applications proliferate and become more ubiquitous,images are used to illustrate media assets that may be of interest to auser. For example, box art or poster art corresponding to a particularmovie may be displayed adjacent to text describing that particularmovie. This box art or poster art is selected for display based solelyon a corresponding media asset, and is not personalized.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are provided herein for personalizing images thatcorrespond to a media asset identifier by using user profileinformation. As an example, the television series “Community” hasseveral actors, such as Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. Posterart developed by an editor of “Community” may include an image thatportrays each of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. In order topersonalize the image, control circuitry may determine which actor(s)the user prefers, and crop out only those actors in the poster art tocreate a personalized image. As an example, if the user prefers JoelMcHale, control circuitry may crop out the portrayal of Joel McHale anduse only that portion of the image to display next to other textdescribing “Community.”

To achieve these ends and others, systems and methods are providedherein for selectively generating for display portions of an image basedon a user profile. In some aspects, these systems and methods comprisecontrol circuitry identifying an image corresponding to a media asset,where the image comprises a plurality of portions, and where eachportion of the plurality of portions comprises a respective entity. Forexample, control circuitry may identify a poster, picture, box art,and/or the like, that corresponds to a media asset, such as the hitseries “Community” starring actors Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and KenJeong. The image identified by control circuitry may include severalportions, where each portion includes a respective entity. For example,control circuitry may determine that the image portrays each of JoelMcHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong, and control circuitry may demarkeach portion that contains each separate actor as a separate portion ofthe image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine an identity of eachrespective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Following the example from above, control circuitry maydetermine that one portion includes Joel McHale, another portionincludes Chevy Chase, and another portion includes Ken Jeong. Controlcircuitry may make these determinations based on image recognitionalgorithms, by consulting metadata corresponding to the image, or by anyother known mechanism.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may access a user profile from adatabase. For example, control circuitry may query a remote or localdatabase to access a user profile that corresponds to a present user ofa user equipment that control circuitry is implemented in or associatedwith. Control circuitry may, responsive to the query, receiveinformation from the user profile.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may cross-reference metadata ofthe user profile with each identity of each respective entity from theimage. For example, control circuitry may compare information of theuser profile with information corresponding to each entity representedin the image. Following from the example above, control circuitry maycross-reference information indicating user preferences from the userprofile against metadata corresponding to each of Joel McHale, KenJeong, and Chevy Chase, in an effort to determine which actor(s) theuser may prefer. Control circuitry may then identify a preferred entitybased on the cross-referencing.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may generate for display therespective portion comprising the preferred entity. For example, controlcircuitry may crop one or more entities that the user prefers from theoriginal image and display the cropped image in place of the originalimage. Doing so may cause an image that a user is more likely to preferto be displayed.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry generates for display therespective portion, control circuitry may crop the image to include lessthan the entire image and to include the preferred entity. Controlcircuitry may crop the image by removing portions of the image that donot include the preferred entity. Any known means of image cropping maybe used to achieve the objects of these embodiments.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry identifies the preferredentity, control circuitry may identify an entity of the image that theuser profile reflects a user associated with the user profile is likelyto prefer. For example, control circuitry may determine that aparticular user enjoys comedy. Control circuitry may determine that KenJeong is an outspoken comedian. Accordingly, control circuitry mayidentify Ken Jeong as the preferred entity, as Ken Jeong satisfies acharacteristic that the user profile indicates the user would enjoy.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry is identifying the preferredentity based on the cross-referencing, control circuitry may identify anaffinity of the user with respect to each entity in the image. Forexample, control circuitry may, based on the user's profile, determine adegree to which a user prefers each entity. The control circuitry maythen rank each respective entity (e.g., based on the determined degree).Control circuitry may then identify a subset of adjacent portions of theplurality of portions that comprise respective entities associated witha highest combined rank as compared to each other subset of adjacentportions of the plurality of portions. For example, control circuitrymay determine that two adjacent entities (e.g., Ken Jeong and ChevyChase) have a higher combined degree of preference, as compared to twoother adjacent entities in the image. Control circuitry may thengenerate for display the respective portion comprising the preferredentity, where doing so comprises generating for display the subset ofthe adjacent portions. As an example, control circuitry may crop boththe portion containing Ken Jeong, as well as the portion containingChevy Chase, to create a new image with that contains both entities.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry determines an identity ofeach respective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions, control circuitry may perform facial recognition on eachrespective entity of the image. For example, control circuitry mayidentify facial characteristics of each entity and cross-reference thosefacial characteristics against listings in a database of characteristicsof individuals to identify a best guess of who each respective entitycorresponds to. In some embodiments, the database that control circuitrycompares the facial characteristics against may be a knowledge graph.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may identify a plurality ofpreferred entities based on the cross-referencing. For example, controlcircuitry may identify two or more entities in the image that a user mayprefer. Following the example from above, if the image is poster artcorresponding to the television show “Community,” and each of ChevyChase, Joel McHale, and Ken Jeong is depicted in the poster art, thecontrol circuitry may determine that the user prefers all of Ken Jeong,Chevy Chase, and Joel McHale. Control circuitry may then generate fordisplay a sufficient amount of the plurality of portions comprisingentities of the plurality of preferred entities to satisfy a specifiedaspect ratio requirement. For example, if a specified aspect ratiorequirement can accommodate only two portions, and an amalgamation ofportions including representations of Ken Jeong and Joel McHale mostclosely satisfies the specified aspect ratio requirement, controlcircuitry may crop the portions including Ken Jeong and Joel McHale andgenerate for display the cropped image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may receive a selection by a userof the respective portion, and generate for display the image inresponse to receiving the selection. For example, if control circuitryreceives a selection by the user of a displayed portion of the image,control circuitry may responsively display the full, original image(e.g., along with a page providing additional information about a mediaasset corresponding to the image).

In some embodiments, control circuitry may recognize textual content inthe image, and generate for simultaneous display the textual contentwith the respective portion comprising the preferred entity. Forexample, if the original image includes textual content (e.g., the title“Community”), control circuitry may cause that textual content to besuperimposed on the respective portion (e.g., a cropped portionincluding a preferred actor).

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine characteristics ofthe preferred entity, and may then determine optimal characteristics forfeatures surrounding the entity in the respective portion correspondingto the preferred entity. Based on the determined optimalcharacteristics, control circuitry may alter characteristics of thefeatures surrounding the entity to reflect the optimal characteristics.For example, control circuitry may consider the skin tone of thepreferred entity, and may then lighten or darken surrounding features ofthe image, such as the color of the sky or background surrounding thedepiction of the preferred entity.

In some aspects, control circuitry may identify an image correspondingto a media asset, where the image comprises a plurality of portions, andwhere each portion of the plurality of portions comprises a respectiveentity. For example, control circuitry may identify a poster, picture,box art, and/or the like, that corresponds to a media asset, such as thehit series “Community” starring actors Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and KenJeong. The image identified by control circuitry may include severalportions, where each portion includes a respective entity. For example,control circuitry may determine that the image portrays each of JoelMcHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong, and control circuitry may demarkeach portion that contains each separate actor as a separate portion ofthe image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine an identity of eachrespective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Following the example from above, control circuitry maydetermine that one portion includes Joel McHale, another portionincludes Chevy Chase, and another portion includes Ken Jeong. Controlcircuitry may make these determinations based on image recognitionalgorithms, by consulting metadata corresponding to the image, or by anyother known mechanism.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may access a database todetermine a level of prevalence of each identity in the media asset. Forexample, control circuitry may, when accessing the database, identifyrelative amounts of screen time of particular actors, or relativeamounts of frames where an actor is the sole character in a frame. Basedon these identifications, control circuitry may determine whichrespective entity corresponds to a highest level of prevalence (e.g.,with respect to the other entities).

In some embodiments, control circuitry may generate for display arespective portion comprising the respective entity that corresponds tothe highest level of prevalence. For example, following from the exampleabove, if Joel McHale has more screen time than Chevy Chase and KenJeong in the show community, control circuitry may generate for displayan image of Joel McHale.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may access a user profile from adatabase. For example, control circuitry may query a remote or localdatabase to access a user profile that corresponds to a present user ofa user equipment that control circuitry is implemented in or associatedwith. Control circuitry may, responsive to the query, receiveinformation from the user profile.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may cross-reference metadata ofthe user profile with each identity of each respective entity. Forexample, control circuitry may compare information of the user profilewith information corresponding to each entity represented in the image.Following from the example above, control circuitry may cross-referenceinformation indicating user preferences from the user profile againstmetadata corresponding to each of Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and ChevyChase, in an effort to determine which actor(s) the user may prefer.Control circuitry may then identify a preferred entity based on thecross-referencing.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may rank each respective entitybased on the cross-referencing. For example, as discussed above, controlcircuitry may rank each respective entity based on how likely a user isto prefer that particular entity. Additionally, control circuitry mayweight each respective entity based on a respective level of prevalencecorresponding to the respective entity. For example, following from theexample above, if Joel McHale is more prevalent than Chevy Chase and KenJeong because Joel McHale has relatively more screen time in the mediaasset “Community,” then Joel McHale will have a high weight.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may heuristically combine therank and weight of each respective entity to determine a combined rankof each respective entity. For example, if control circuitry determinesthat a user has a strong preference for Ken Jeong, and Ken Jeong has alow weight because he is not so prevalent in the media asset“Community,” and control circuitry determines that a user stronglydislikes Joel McHale, but that Joel McHale has a high prevalence,control circuitry may consider all these factors heuristically todetermine a combined rank. Because, in this case, Joel McHale is sostrongly disliked, control circuitry may attribute a higher combinedweight to Ken Jeong. Control circuitry may then generate for display arespective portion comprising the respective entity that corresponds tothe highest combined rank (in this case, an image including Ken Jeong).

In some embodiments, control circuitry may identify a plurality ofprevalent entities by determining two or more entities with the highestprevalence levels, relative to each other entity, and generate fordisplay a sufficient amount of the plurality of portions comprisingentities of the plurality of preferred entities to satisfy a specifiedaspect ratio requirement. For example, control circuitry may identifyKen Jeong and Joel McHale as having the two highest prevalence levels(in accordance with any manner described above and below). Controlcircuitry may identify two identities if a specified aspect ratiorequirement can accommodate only two portions. Control circuitry maycrop the portions including Ken Jeong and Joel McHale and generate fordisplay the cropped image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine characteristics ofthe entity that corresponds to the highest level of prevalence, and maythen determine optimal characteristics for features surrounding theentity in the respective portion corresponding to the entity thatcorresponds to the highest level of prevalence. Based on the determinedoptimal characteristics, control circuitry may alter characteristics ofthe features surrounding the entity to reflect the optimalcharacteristics. For example, control circuitry may consider the skintone of the entity that corresponds to the highest level of prevalence,and may then lighten or darken surrounding features of the image, suchas the color of the sky or background surrounding the depiction of theentity corresponding to the highest level of prevalence.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine the level ofprevalence based on at least one of screen time, amount of time inclose-up footage, amount of time in wide shot footage, and amount oftime of being the sole character in a frame in the media asset.

In some aspects, control circuitry may identify a plurality of imagescorresponding to a media asset, where each image of the plurality ofimages comprises at least one portion, and where each portion comprisesa respective entity. For example, control circuitry may identify aposter, picture, box art, and/or the like, that corresponds to a mediaasset, such as the hit series “Community” starring actors Joel McHale,Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. The images identified by control circuitrymay include several portions, where each portion includes a respectiveentity. For example, control circuitry may determine that the imageportrays each of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong, and controlcircuitry may demark each portion that contains each separate actor as aseparate portion of the image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine an identity of eachrespective entity. Following the example from above, control circuitrymay determine that one entity represents Joel McHale, another entityrepresents Chevy Chase, and another entity represents Ken Jeong. Controlcircuitry may make these determinations based on image recognitionalgorithms, by consulting metadata corresponding to the image, or by anyother known mechanism.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may access a user profile from adatabase. For example, control circuitry may query a remote or localdatabase to access a user profile that corresponds to a present user ofa user equipment that control circuitry is implemented in or associatedwith. Control circuitry may, responsive to the query, receiveinformation from the user profile.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may cross-reference metadata ofthe user profile with each identity of each respective entity. Forexample, control circuitry may compare information of the user profilewith information corresponding to each entity. Following from theexample above, control circuitry may cross-reference informationindicating user preferences from the user profile against metadatacorresponding to each of Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase, in aneffort to determine which actor(s) the user may prefer. Controlcircuitry may then identify a preferred entity based on thecross-referencing.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine an image of theplurality of images where the preferred entity is more prevalent, andmay generate for display that image. For example, control circuitry maydetermine that Ken Jeong is the preferred entity. Control circuitry maydetermine that there are three candidates images in the plurality ofimages, where one includes all of Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and ChevyChase, one includes only Ken Jeong, and one includes the entire cast ofthe media asset “Community.” Control circuitry may determine that theimage including only Ken Jeong is the image in which Ken Jeong is mostprevalent. Control circuitry may then generate for display the imageincluding Ken Jeong. The display of the image may be generated using anymanner discussed above and below with respect to other embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 2 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative embodiment of a user equipment device onwhich an image, portions of images, media asset identifiers, and otherinformation are displayed, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhich portion of an image to generate for display, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhich portion of an image to generate for display based on a level ofprevalence of an identity of an entity in a media asset, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in selectivelygenerating for display an image of a plurality of images where auser-preferred entity is most prevalent, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To achieve these ends and others, systems and methods are providedherein for selectively generating for display portions of an image basedon a user profile. In some aspects, these systems and methods comprisecontrol circuitry identifying an image corresponding to a media asset,where the image comprises a plurality of portions, and where eachportion of the plurality of portions comprises a respective entity. Forexample, control circuitry may identify a poster, picture, box art,and/or the like, that corresponds to a media asset, such as the hitseries “Community” starring actors Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and KenJeong. The image identified by control circuitry may include severalportions, where each portion includes a respective entity. For example,control circuitry may determine that the image portrays each of JoelMcHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong, and control circuitry may demarkeach portion that contains each separate actor as a separate portion ofthe image.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine an identity of eachrespective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Following the example from above, control circuitry maydetermine that one portion includes Joel McHale, another portionincludes Chevy Chase, and another portion includes Ken Jeong. Controlcircuitry may make these determinations based on image recognitionalgorithms, by consulting metadata corresponding to the image, or by anyother known mechanism.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may access a user profile from adatabase. For example, control circuitry may query a remote or localdatabase to access a user profile that corresponds to a present user ofa user equipment that control circuitry is implemented in or associatedwith. Control circuitry may, responsive to the query, receiveinformation of the user profile.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may cross-reference metadata fromthe user profile with each identity of each respective entity of theimage. For example, control circuitry may compare information from theuser profile with information corresponding to each entity representedin the image. Following from the example above, control circuitry maycross-reference information indicating user preferences from the userprofile against metadata corresponding to each of Joel McHale, KenJeong, and Chevy Chase, in an effort to determine which actor(s) theuser may prefer. Control circuitry may then identify a preferred entitybased on the cross-referencing.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may generate for display therespective portion comprising the preferred entity. For example, controlcircuitry may crop one or more entities that the user prefers from theoriginal image and display the cropped image in place of the originalimage. Doing so may cause an image that a user is more likely to preferto be displayed.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, socialmedia, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 1-2 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 1-2 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 1-2 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 1 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 100arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 100 may include grid 102 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 104, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 106, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 102 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 108, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 110. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 110 may be provided inprogram information region 112. Region 112 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L. P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 102 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 114, recorded content listing 116, andInternet content listing 118. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 100 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings114, 116, and 118 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 102 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 102. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 120. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 120.)

Display 100 may also include video region 122, advertisement 124, andoptions region 126. Video region 122 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 122 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 102. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming), is currently available for viewing, will be available forviewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, andmay correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listingsin grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also be for products or servicesrelated or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement124 may be selectable and provide further information about content,provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing ofcontent, a product, or a service, provide content relating to theadvertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user'sprofile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of displayprovided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.

While advertisement 124 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 124 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid102. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 126 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 126 may be part of display 100 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 126 may concern features related to program listings in grid 102or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 4. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 2. Video mosaic display 200 includes selectable options 202 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 200, television listings option 204 isselected, thus providing listings 206, 208, 210, and 212 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 200 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 208 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 214 and text portion 216.Media portion 214 and/or text portion 216 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 214 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 200 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 206 islarger than listings 208, 210, and 212), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 3 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 300. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 4.User equipment device 300 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 302. I/O path 302 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 304, which includesprocessing circuitry 306 and storage 308. Control circuitry 304 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 302. I/O path 302 may connect control circuitry 304 (andspecifically processing circuitry 306) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 3 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 304 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 306. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 308). Specifically, control circuitry 304 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 304 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 304 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 304 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 4). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 308 thatis part of control circuitry 304. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 308 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 4, may be used to supplementstorage 308 or instead of storage 308.

Control circuitry 304 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 304 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 300. Circuitry 304 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 308 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 300, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 308.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 304 using user inputinterface 310. User input interface 310 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 312 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300. For example, display 312 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 310may be integrated with or combined with display 312. Display 312 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 312 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 312 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 312.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry304. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 304.Speakers 314 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 312 may be played throughspeakers 314. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers314.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 300. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage308), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 304 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 308 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 304 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 310. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 310 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 300 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 300. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 304 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 300. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 300.Equipment device 300 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 310 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 300 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 310.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 300 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 304). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 304 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 304. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 304. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 300 of FIG. 3 can be implemented in system 400 ofFIG. 4 as user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404,wireless user communications device 406, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 3 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, or awireless user communications device 406. For example, user televisionequipment 402 may, like some user computer equipment 404, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 404 may, like some television equipment 402, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 404, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 406.

In system 400, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 4 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 402, user computer equipment 404, wireless user communicationsdevice 406) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 414.Namely, user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, andwireless user communications device 406 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 414 via communications paths 408, 410, and 412, respectively.Communications network 414 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 408, 410, and 412 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 412 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 4 it is awireless path and paths 408 and 410 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 408, 410, and 412, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 414.

System 400 includes content source 416 and media guidance data source418 coupled to communications network 414 via communication paths 420and 422, respectively. Paths 420 and 422 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 408, 410,and 412. Communications with the content source 416 and media guidancedata source 418 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 416 and 418 withuser equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 are shown as throughcommunications network 414, in some embodiments, sources 416 and 418 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 408, 410, and 412.

Content source 416 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 416 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 416 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 416 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 418 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 418may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 418 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 418 mayprovide user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions and advertisements thatentice the user to keep the particular service or source indicated bythe score as one to which the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 308, and executedby control circuitry 304 of a user equipment device 300. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 304 of user equipment device 300and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 418), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 418 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices402, 404, and 406 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 400 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 4.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 414.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 416 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 402 and user computer equipment 404may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 406 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 414. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 416 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 418. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, and wirelessuser communications device 406. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 404 or wireless usercommunications device 406 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 404. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 414. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative embodiment of a user equipment device onwhich an image, portions of images, media asset identifiers, and otherinformation are displayed, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure. FIG. 5 depicts user equipment 500 (which may include thefunctionality of user equipment 402, 404, and/or 406). Control circuitry304 may cause user equipment 500 to display media asset identifiers 502,and image portions 504. Control circuitry 304 may generate for display agiven image portion 504 in a manner such that the given image portion504 corresponds to an adjacent media asset identifier 502. When controlcircuitry 304 detects a user selection of a given media asset identifier502, control circuitry 304 may cause a display of descriptiveinformation 506 corresponding to the selected given media assetidentifier 502. Additionally, when control circuitry 304 detects a userselection of the given media asset identifier 502, control circuitry 304may generate for display image 508 that corresponds to the selectedmedia asset identifier 502. In some embodiments, image 508 may be alarger image from which image portion 504 was cropped. Any of elements502, 504, 506, and 508 may be optionally displayed or omitted from thedisplay illustrated in FIG. 5. Furthermore, the manner in which elements502, 504, 506, and 508 is illustrated are merely illustrative, and theseillustrations may be rearranged in any manner.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may identify an imagecorresponding to a media asset. For example, control circuitry 304 maydetermine that media asset identifier 502 corresponds to the media asset“Community,” which is a comedy series starring actors Joel McHale, KenJeong, and Chevy Chase. Control circuitry 304 may identify an image(e.g., image 508) that corresponds to the media asset “Community.” Image508 may be any image associated with “Community,” such as poster art,box art, fan art, a photograph, a frame of a video, or any other imageincluding any actor or identifying information corresponding to themedia asset identified by media asset identifier 502. Control circuitry304 may identify image 508 by cross-referencing a database (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418, accessed by way of communications network 414)that includes entries corresponding to media asset metadata. Image 508may include a plurality of portions, where each portion includes arespective entity. For example, image 508 may correspond to the mediaasset “Community,” and may include depictions of Joel McHale, ChevyChase, and Ken Jeong. Control circuitry 304 may partition image 508 intoportions, where each portion includes an identified entity.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine an identity ofeach respective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Control circuitry 304 may determine the entity by using anyknown mechanism. As an example, control circuitry 304 may determine theidentity of Chevy Chase in image 508 by accessing metadata correspondingto image 508 and determining therefrom that Chevy Chase is depicted in acertain part of image 508. As another example, control circuitry 304 mayutilize image recognition technology (e.g., facial recognitiontechnology), where control circuitry 304 recognizes uniquecharacteristics of each entity, and then cross-references those uniquecharacteristics against a database (e.g., storage 306) to find an entitythat matches the characteristics. In some embodiments, when determiningthe identity of an entity of image 508, control circuitry 304 mayconsult a knowledge graph and may provide the knowledge graph anymetadata associated with a given entity, and/or may provide theknowledge graph with any other data associated with a given entity (suchas data gleaned from image recognition processes, and/or data gleanedfrom user interaction with images of entities similar to the givenentity). Knowledge graphs and their features are described in greaterdetail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/501,504, filed Sep. 30,2014, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/500,309, filed Sep. 29, 2014,and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/448,308, filed Jul. 31, 2014,which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may access a user profilefrom a database. For example, control circuitry may access a userprofile of a current user of user equipment 500 by retrieving the userprofile from a database. The database may be local (e.g., storage 306)or remote (e.g., media guidance data source 418 or media content source416, accessible by way of communications network 414). The user profilemay indicate preferences of the user of user equipment 500.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may cross-reference metadataof the user profile with each identity of each respective entitydepicted in image 508. In some embodiments, the metadata may comprisepreference information corresponding to the user. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may cross-reference information corresponding to theuser's preference for the actor Chevy Chase against the identity ofChevy Chase, as identified by control circuitry 304 above as an entityof image 508. Control circuitry 304 may responsively identify apreferred entity based on the cross-referencing. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and KenJeong depicted in image 508, where image 508 represents the media asset“Community,” the user of user equipment 500 prefers Chevy Chase.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may generate for display therespective portion comprising the preferred entity. For example, themedia guidance application illustrated in FIG. 5 may cause image portion504 that is depicted next to media asset identifier 502 to be a croppedportion of image 508 that includes an entity that the user of userequipment 500 prefers. Following the “Community” example above, controlcircuitry 304 may crop a portion of image 508 that includes Chevy Chase,but does not include Joel McHale or Ken Jeong, and generate for displaythat cropped portion as image portion 504. In this manner, controlcircuitry 304 may cause the media guidance application running on userequipment 500 to be personalized to a user such that portions of artcorresponding to a given media asset identifier 502 are displayed inimage 504, instead of full image 508 which includes entities that theuser is not interested in.

In some embodiments, when control circuitry 304 is identifying thepreferred entity based on the cross-referencing, control circuitry 304may identify an affinity of the user with respect to each entity in theimage. For example, control circuitry 304 may determine that a userprofile reflects that a user really likes Chevy Chase, and may thereforeidentify a high affinity of the user with respect to Chevy Chase.Control circuitry 304 may identify that a user is indifferent withrespect to Joel McHale, and may therefore identify a neutral affinity ofthe user with respect to Joel McHale. Control circuitry 304 may identifythat a user dislikes Ken Jeong, and may therefore identify a negativeaffinity of the user with respect to Ken Jeong.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may rank each respectiveaffinity. Following from the example above, control circuitry would rankthe affinity from “high,” to “neutral,” to “negative.” Accordingly,Chevy Chase would be ranked first, Joel McHale would be ranked second,and Ken Jeong would be ranked third.

Control circuitry 304 may then identify a subset of adjacent portions ofthe plurality of portions that comprise respective entities associatedwith the highest combined rank as compared to each other subset ofadjacent portions of the plurality of portions of image 508. Forexample, image 508 may depict Joel McHale in a left portion of image508, Chevy Chase in a middle portion of image 508, and Ken Jeong in aright portion of image 508. Control circuitry 304 may determine adjacententities. For example, Joel McHale and Chevy Chase are entities depictedin adjacent portions, as the left and middle portions of image 508 areadjacent to one another. Similarly, Chevy Chase and Ken Jeong areentities depicted in adjacent portions, as the middle and right portionsof image 508 are adjacent to one another. Control circuitry may combinethe rank of each adjacent entity in any known manner, such as averagingthe rank of the adjacent entities. For example, the average rank of JoelMcHale and Chevy Chase would be 1.5, and the average rank of Chevy Chaseand Ken Jeong would be 2.5.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may then generate for displayimage portion 504 as including the subset of image portions (e.g., thetwo or more adjacent image portions with the highest combined rank). Insome embodiments, control circuitry 304 may perform similar processesusing non-adjacent portions of image 508, where the non-adjacentportions of image 508 that are to be depicted in image portion 504 arestitched together using any known image stitching mechanism.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may identify a plurality ofpreferred entities based on the cross-referencing. For example, controlcircuitry may, as discussed above, determine an affinity of the user foreach entity of image 508. Control circuitry 304 may determine athreshold entity, or retrieve a threshold affinity from a database(e.g., storage 308 or media guidance data source 418). Control circuitry304 may identify a plurality of preferred entities depicted in image 508by determining which entities of image 508 correspond to an affinitythat equals or exceeds the threshold affinity.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may generate for display asufficient amount of the plurality of portions comprising entities ofthe plurality of preferred entities to satisfy a specified aspect ratiorequirement. As an example, control circuitry 304 may determine aspecified aspect ratio requirement by determining dimensions of imageportion 504 that the media guidance application used by user equipment500 is programmed to display. Control circuitry 304 may determine, thatexactly two portions of image 508 are required to satisfy the determineddimensions. Control circuitry 304 may then select two portions fordisplay as image portion 504 to satisfy the specified aspect ratiorequirement (e.g., using any manner to select multiple portionsdescribed above and below).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may receive a selection by auser of the respective portion of image 508, and may generate fordisplay image portion 504 in response to receiving the selection. Forexample, control circuitry 304 may receive a selection or indicationfrom the user that the user prefers Chevy Chase by the user selectingthe depiction of Chevy Chase in image 508. Alternatively, controlcircuitry 304 may receive this selection by the user describing ChevyChase as a preferred actor in any known manner without specificallyselecting Chevy Chase in image 508 itself. Control circuitry 304 mayresponsively generate for display image portion 504 including a portionof image 508 including Chevy Chase in response to receiving theselection.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may recognize textual contentin image 508. As an example, image 508 includes the textual content ofthe title of the media asset “Community.” Control circuitry 304 mayrecognize that the text “Community” exists in image 508. Controlcircuitry 304 may generate for simultaneous display the textual contentwith the respective portion comprising the preferred entity. Forexample, control circuitry 304 may, when generating for display imageportion 504, include the textual content “Community” in the generateddisplay of image portion 504. Control circuitry 304 may maintain thecomposition of the textual content, or may alter it (e.g., in terms ofstyle, content, size, or any other manner).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine that aplurality of images corresponding to a given media asset identifier 502exist. Control circuitry may determine which image(s) 508 to generatefor display by determining an image the user prefers in any mannerdescribed above or below with respect to determining which image portion504 to generate for display. In some embodiments, a preferable image ora stitched set of preferable images may be generated for display whereimage portion 504 is generated for display, where preferable images orstitched sets of images are determined in any manner described above andbelow.

In another aspect, control circuitry 304 may selectively generate fordisplay portions of an image (e.g., image portion 504). Controlcircuitry 304 may achieve this end by first identifying an imagecorresponding to a media asset (e.g., image 508), where the imagecomprises a plurality of portions, and wherein each portion of theplurality of portions comprises a respective entity. Control circuitry304 may perform the identifying in any manner discussed above and below.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine an identity ofeach respective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Control circuitry 304 may determine the identity in any mannerdescribed above and below.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may access a database todetermine a level of prevalence of each identity in the media asset. Thedatabase may be local to control circuitry 304 (e.g., at storage 308),or remote to control circuitry 304 (e.g., at media guidance data source418, accessed by way of communications network 414). Control circuitry304 may, when accessing the database, retrieve information that may beused to determine a level of prevalence of each identity in the mediaasset. For example, control circuitry 304 may retrieve informationrelating to screen time, amount of time in close-up footage, amount oftime in wide shot footage, an amount of time of being the sole characterin a frame for each identity with respect to the media asset. Controlcircuitry 304 may determine the level of prevalence by comparing any of,or a combination of, these factors, with respect to any given identity.In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine whichrespective entity corresponds to a highest level of prevalence. Forexample, after control circuitry 304 has determined a level ofprevalence for each identity, control circuitry 304 may determine whichrespective entity has the highest level of prevalence. For example,following from the “Community” example, Joel McHale has more screen timein “Community” than Chevy Chase, and thus Joel McHale may be assigned ahigher level of prevalence than Chevy Chase.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may generate for display arespective portion comprising the respective entity that corresponds tothe highest level of prevalence (e.g., at image portion 504 or image508). Control circuitry 304 may generate for display the respectiveportion in any manner described above and below.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may access a user profilefrom a database, cross-reference metadata of the user profile with eachidentity of each respective entity, and rank each respective entitybased on the cross-referencing. Control circuitry 304 may perform thesefunctions in any manner described above and below.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may weight each respectiveentity based on a respective level of prevalence corresponding to therespective entity. For example, following from the example above, ifJoel McHale is more prevalent than Chevy Chase and Ken Jeong becauseJoel McHale has relatively more screen time in the media asset“Community,” then control circuitry 304 may assign Joel McHale a highweight.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may heuristically combine therank and weight of each respective entity to determine a combined rankof each respective entity. For example, if control circuitry 304determines that a user has a strong preference for Ken Jeong, and KenJeong has a low weight because he is not so prevalent in the media asset“Community,” and control circuitry 304 determines that a user stronglydislikes Joel McHale, but that Joel McHale has a high prevalence,control circuitry 304 may consider all these factors heuristically todetermine a combined rank. Because, in this case, Joel McHale is sostrongly disliked, control circuitry 304 may attribute a higher combinedweight to Ken Jeong. Control circuitry 304 may then generate for display(e.g., on display 312 of user equipment 500 at image portion 504) arespective portion comprising the respective entity that corresponds tothe highest combined rank (in this case, an image including Ken Jeong).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may identify a plurality ofprevalent entities by determining two or more entities with the highestprevalence levels, relative to each other entity, and generate fordisplay (e.g., on display 312) a sufficient amount of the plurality ofportions comprising entities of the plurality of preferred entities tosatisfy a specified aspect ratio requirement. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may identify Ken Jeong and Joel McHale as having the twohighest prevalence levels (in accordance with any manner described aboveand below). Control circuitry 304 may identify two identities if aspecified aspect ratio requirement can accommodate only two portions.Control circuitry 304 may crop the portions including Ken Jeong and JoelMcHale and generate for display the cropped image. The specified aspectratio may be a height to width ratio or a specified dimension of imageportion 504 that control circuitry 304 is required to meet whengenerating for display an image or image portion.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine characteristicsof the entity that correspond to the highest level of prevalence, andmay then determine optimal characteristics for features surrounding theentity in the respective portion corresponding to the entity thatcorresponds to the highest level of prevalence. Based on the determinedoptimal characteristics, control circuitry 304 may alter characteristicsof the features surrounding the entity to reflect the optimalcharacteristics. For example, control circuitry 304 may consider theskin tone of the entity that corresponds to the highest level ofprevalence, and may then lighten or darken surrounding features of theimage (e.g., image portion 504 or image 508), such as the color of thesky or background surrounding the depiction of the entity correspondingto the highest level of prevalence.

Any feature described above with respect to any other aspect orembodiment of this disclosure may be implemented when selectivelygenerating for display portion of an image based on level of prevalence.

In some aspects, control circuitry 304 may identify a plurality ofimages corresponding to a media asset, where each image of the pluralityof images comprises at least one portion, and where each portioncomprises a respective entity. For example, control circuitry 304 mayidentify a poster, picture, box art, and/or the like, that correspondsto a media asset, such as the hit series “Community” starring actorsJoel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. The images identified bycontrol circuitry 304 may include several portions, where each portionincludes a respective entity. For example, control circuitry 304 maydetermine that the image (e.g., image 508) portrays each of Joel McHale,Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong, and control circuitry 304 may demark eachportion that contains each separate actor as a separate portion of theimage.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine an identity ofeach respective entity. Following the example from above, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that one entity represents Joel McHale,another entity represents Chevy Chase, and another entity represents KenJeong. Control circuitry 304 may make these determinations based onimage recognition algorithms, by consulting metadata corresponding tothe image, or by any other known mechanism. Any manner of identifyingimages and determining an identity of a respective entity describedabove and is contemplated for use in this aspect.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may access a user profilefrom a database. For example, control circuitry 304 may query a remoteor local database to access a user profile that corresponds to a presentuser of a user equipment that control circuitry 304 is implemented in orassociated with. Control circuitry 304 may, responsive to the query,receive information from the user profile. Any manner of accessing auser profile discussed above and below is contemplated for use in thisaspect.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may cross-reference metadataof the user profile with each identity of each respective entity. Forexample, control circuitry 304 may compare information of the userprofile with information corresponding to each entity. Following fromthe example above, control circuitry 304 may cross-reference informationindicating user preferences from the user profile against metadatacorresponding to each of Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase, in aneffort to determine which actor(s) the user may prefer. Controlcircuitry 304 may then identify a preferred entity based on thecross-referencing. Any manner of cross-referencing metadata of a userprofile with an identity of a respective identity, described above andbelow, is contemplated for use in this aspect.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine an image of theplurality of images where the preferred entity is more prevalent, andmay generate for display that image (e.g., at image portion 504 or image508). For example, control circuitry 304 may determine that Ken Jeong isthe preferred entity. Control circuitry 304 may determine that there arethree candidates images in the plurality of images, where one includesall of Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase, one includes only KenJeong, and one includes the entire cast of the media asset “Community.”Control circuitry 304 may determine that the image including only KenJeong is the image in which Ken Jeong is most prevalent. Controlcircuitry 304 may then generate for display the image including KenJeong. The display of the image may be generated using any mannerdiscussed above and below with respect to other embodiments. Adetermination of prevalence may be made consistent with any discussionof determining a level of prevalence, as discussed above and below. Allother embodiments of any aspect described above and below arecontemplated as applicable embodiments for this aspect involvingselectively generating for display an image of a plurality of images.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhich portion of an image to generate for display. It should be notedthat process 600 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 3-5. For example, process 600 maybe executed by control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by controlcircuitry implemented on user equipment 402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4) inorder to determine which portion of an image to generate for display. Inaddition, one or more steps of process 600 may be incorporated into orcombined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment, suchas those described in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8.

Process 600 begins at 602, where control circuitry 304 may identify animage corresponding to a media asset, where the image includes nportions, and where each portion of the n portions comprises arespective entity. For example, control circuitry 304 may determine thatmedia asset identifier 502 corresponds to the media asset “Community,”which is a comedy series starring actors Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, andChevy Chase. Control circuitry 304 may identify an image (e.g., image508) that corresponds to the media asset “Community.” Control circuitry304 may identify image 508 by cross-referencing a database (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418, accessed by way of communications network414)) that includes entries corresponding to media asset metadata. Image508 may include a plurality of portions, where each portion includes arespective entity. For example, image 508 may correspond to the mediaasset “Community,” and may include depictions of Joel McHale, ChevyChase, and Ken Jeong. Control circuitry 304 may partition image 508 intoportions, where each portion includes an identified entity (in thiscase, n=3).

Process 600 may then continue to 604, where control circuitry 304 maydetermine an identity of each respective entity in each respectiveportion of the plurality of portions. Control circuitry 304 maydetermine the entity by using any known mechanism. As an example,control circuitry 304 may determine the identity of Chevy Chase in image508 by accessing metadata corresponding to image 508 and determiningtherefrom that Chevy Chase is depicted in a certain part of image 508.As another example, control circuitry 304 may utilize image recognitiontechnology (e.g., facial recognition technology), where controlcircuitry 304 recognizes unique characteristics of each entity, and thencross-references those unique characteristics against a database (e.g.,storage 306) to find an entity that matches the characteristics.

Process 600 may then continue to 606, where control circuitry 304 mayaccess a user profile from a database. For example, control circuitrymay access a user profile of a current user of user equipment 500 byretrieving the user profile from a database. The database may be local(e.g., storage 306) or remote (e.g., media guidance data source 418 ormedia content source 416, accessible by way of communications network414). The user profile may indicate preferences of the user of userequipment 500.

Process 600 may then continue to 608, where a counter i is initializedto 1. Process 600 may then continue to 610, where control circuitry 304may cross-reference metadata of the user profile with the identity ofthe entity in the ith portion of image 508. In some embodiments, themetadata may comprise preference information corresponding to the user.For example, control circuitry 304 may cross-reference informationcorresponding to the user's preference for the actor Chevy Chase againstthe identity of Chevy Chase, as identified by control circuitry 304above as an entity of image 508.

Process 600 may then continue to 612, where control circuitry 304determines whether the counter equals the number of n portions in image508. If the counter i does not equal n, then process 600 may loop backto 610 after incrementing counter i by one. If the counter i does equaln, then process 600 may continue to 614, where control circuitry 304 mayidentify a preferred entity based on the cross-referencing. For example,control circuitry 304 may determine that of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase,and Ken Jeong depicted in image 508, where image 508 represents themedia asset “Community,” the user of user equipment 500 prefers ChevyChase.

Process 600 may then continue to 616, where control circuitry 304 maygenerate for display the respective portion comprising the preferredentity. For example, the media guidance application illustrated in FIG.5 may cause image portion 504 that is depicted next to media assetidentifier 502 to be a cropped portion of image 508 that includes anentity that the user of user equipment 500 prefers. Following the“Community” example above, control circuitry 304 may crop a portion ofimage 508 that includes Chevy Chase, but does not include Joel McHale orKen Jeong, and generate for display that cropped portion as imageportion 504. In this manner, control circuitry 304 may cause the mediaguidance application running on user equipment 500 to be personalized toa user such that portions of art corresponding to a given media assetidentifier 502 are displayed in image 504, instead of full image 508which includes entities that the user is not interested in.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 6 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 6 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 6.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhich portion of an image to generate for display based on a level ofprevalence of an identity of an entity in a media asset, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process700 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any ofthe devices shown in FIGS. 3-5. For example, process 700 may be executedby control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by control circuitryimplemented on user equipment 402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4) in order todetermine which portion of an image to generate for display. Inaddition, one or more steps of process 600 may be incorporated into orcombined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment, suchas those described in FIG. 6 and FIG. 8.

Process 700 begins at 702, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry304) may identify an image corresponding to a media asset, where theimage comprises a plurality of portions, and where each portion of theplurality of portions comprises a respective entity. For example,control circuitry 304 may determine that media asset identifier 502corresponds to the media asset “Community,” which is a comedy seriesstarring actors Joel McHale, Ken Jeong, and Chevy Chase. Controlcircuitry 304 may identify an image (e.g., image 508) that correspondsto the media asset “Community.” Control circuitry 304 may identify image508 by cross-referencing a database (e.g., media guidance data source418, accessed by way of communications network 414)) that includesentries corresponding to media asset metadata. Image 508 may include aplurality of portions, where each portion includes a respective entity.For example, image 508 may correspond to the media asset “Community,”and may include depictions of Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong,which are respective entities of three different portions of image 508.Process 700 may continue to 704.

At 704, control circuitry 304 may determine an identity of eachrespective entity in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions. Control circuitry 304 may determine the entity by using anyknown mechanism. As an example, control circuitry 304 may determine theidentity of Chevy Chase in image 508 by accessing metadata correspondingto image 508 and determining therefrom that Chevy Chase is depicted in acertain part of image 508. As another example, control circuitry 304 mayutilize image recognition technology (e.g., facial recognitiontechnology), where control circuitry 304 recognizes uniquecharacteristics of each entity, and then cross-references those uniquecharacteristics against a database (e.g., storage 306) to find an entitythat matches the characteristics. Process 700 may then continue to 706.

At 706, control circuitry 304 may access a database to determine a levelof prevalence of each identity in the media asset. Control circuitry 304may determine the level of prevalence in any manner described above andbelow, such as by determining an amount of screen time in the mediaasset for each identity. For example, control circuitry 304 maydetermine that Joel McHale has 14 minutes of screen time, Ken Jeong has3 minutes of screen time, and Chevy Chase has 1 minute of screen time,in an episode of “Community.” Process 700 may then continue to 708.

At 708, control circuitry 304 may determine which respective entitycorresponds to a highest level of prevalence. Control circuitry 304 maydo this, for example, by comparing each level of prevalence against oneanother to determine the largest level of prevalence. Following from theexample above regarding screen time, because Joel McHale has the longestamount of screen time in a given episode of “Community,” controlcircuitry 304 will determine that Joel McHale corresponds to a highestlevel of prevalence. Process 700 may then continue to 710.

At 710, control circuitry 304 may generate for display a respectiveportion comprising the respective entity that corresponds to the highestlevel of prevalence. Following from the example above, control circuitry304 may generate for display (e.g., at image portion 504) the portioncomprising Joel McHale of image 508.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 7 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 7 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 7.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in selectivelygenerating for display an image of a plurality of images where auser-preferred entity is most prevalent, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 800 orany step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 3-5. For example, process 800 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by control circuitryimplemented on user equipment 402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4) in order todetermine which portion of an image to generate for display. Inaddition, one or more steps of process 800 may be incorporated into orcombined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment, suchas those described in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7.

Process 800 beings at 802, where control circuitry (e.g., controlcircuitry 304) may identify a plurality of images corresponding to amedia asset, where each image of the plurality of images comprises atleast one portion, and where each portion comprises a respective entity.For example, control circuitry 304 may identify multiple imagescorresponding to “Community,” where one image corresponds to JoelMcHale, one image corresponds to Chevy Chase, and one image includes allof Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. Process 800 may thencontinue to 804.

At 804, control circuitry 304 may determine an identity of eachrespective entity. Control circuitry 304 may determine the identityusing any manner described above and below, such as image recognitiontechniques or an analysis of metadata associated with the image todetermine the identity. Process 800 may then continue to 806.

At 806, control circuitry 304 may access a user profile from a database.Control circuitry 304 may access the user profile in any mannerdescribed above and below, such as by accessing a database at mediaguidance data source 418 by way of communications network 414. Process800 may then continue to 808.

At 808, control circuitry 304 may cross-reference metadata of the userprofile with each identity of each respective identity. Thecross-referencing of the metadata of the user profile with each identityof each respective entity may be performed consistent with any mannerdescribed above and below. The cross-referencing of metadata with of theuser profile with each identity of each respective identity may yieldinformation about a user's preferences with each identity. Process 800may then continue to 810.

At 810, control circuitry 304 may identify a preferred entity based onthe cross-referencing. For example, control circuitry 304 may determinethat the user prefers supporting cast comedians, such as Chevy Chase,and does not prefer the main character Joel McHale. Process 800 may thencontinue to 812.

At 812, control circuitry 304 may determine an image of the plurality ofimages where the preferred entity is most prevalent. Following from theexample above, control circuitry 304 may determine that there is animage that includes only Chevy Chase, and another image including ChevyChase, Joel McHale, and Ken Jeong. Control circuitry 304 may determinethat the image including only Chevy Chase is an image where Chevy Chaseis most prevalent. Process 800 may then continue to 814, where controlcircuitry 304 may generate for display the image including only ChevyChase.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 8 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 8.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM devices, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, determination which portion of image 508 to generate fordisplay may be performed by processing circuitry, e.g., by processingcircuitry 306 of FIG. 3. The processing circuitry, for instance, may bea general purpose processor, a customized integrated circuit (e.g., anASIC), or a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) within user equipment300, media content source 416, or media guidance data source 418. Forexample, the media asset correspondences as described herein may bestored in, and retrieved from, storage 308 of FIG. 3, or media guidancedata source 418 of FIG. 4. Furthermore, processing circuitry, or acomputer program, may update settings associated with a user, such asuser profile preferences, updating the information stored within storage308 of FIG. 3 or media guidance data source 418 of FIG. 4.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for selectively generating for displayportions of an image based on a user profile, the method comprising:receiving a selection of a textual identifier corresponding to a mediaasset; based on receiving the selection of the textual identifier,identifying an image corresponding to the media asset, wherein the imagecomprises a plurality of portions, and wherein each portion of theplurality of portions comprises a respective depiction of a person of aplurality of persons depicted within the image; determining an identityof each respective person in each respective portion of the plurality ofportions; accessing a user profile from a database; generating anaffinity ranking for each respective person based on the user profile;identifying a plurality of subsets of portions of the image, each subsetcomprising two adjacent respective portions of the plurality ofportions; calculating a combined affinity ranking for each respectivesubset based on the affinity ranking of each person depicted by therespective subset; identifying a subset with a highest combined affinityranking, wherein the subset with the highest combined affinity rankingis a preferred subset; cropping the image, wherein the cropped imageincludes the preferred subset, and does not include subsets that are notidentified as preferred subsets; and generating for simultaneousdisplay, the cropped image with the textual identifier.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining the identity of each respective persondepicted in each respective portion of the plurality of portionscomprises performing facial recognition on each respective depiction ofa person of the image.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:generating for display a sufficient number of the plurality of subsetscomprising adjacent portions of the image to satisfy a specified aspectratio requirement.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:recognizing textual content in the image; and generating forsimultaneous display the textual content with the subset with thehighest combined affinity ranking.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: determining characteristics of the subset with the highestcombined affinity ranking; determining, based on the characteristics ofthe subset with the highest combined affinity ranking, optimalcharacteristics for features surrounding the subset with the highestcombined affinity ranking in the respective portion; and alteringcharacteristics of the features surrounding the subset with the highestcombined affinity ranking to reflect the optimal characteristics.
 6. Asystem for selectively generating for display portions of an image basedon a user profile, the system comprising: communications circuitry; andcontrol circuitry configured to: receive a selection of a textualidentifier corresponding to a media asset; based on receiving theselection of the textual identifier, identify an image corresponding tothe media asset, wherein the image comprises a plurality of portions,and wherein each portion of the plurality of portions comprises arespective depiction of a person of a plurality of persons depictedwithin the image; determine an identity of each respective person ineach respective portion of the plurality of portions; access, using thecommunications circuitry, a user profile from a database; generate anaffinity ranking for each respective person based on the user profile;identify a plurality of subsets of portions of the image, each subsetcomprising two adjacent respective portions of the plurality ofportions; calculate a combined affinity ranking for each respectivesubset based on the affinity ranking of each person depicted by therespective subset; identify a subset with a highest combined affinityranking, wherein the subset with the highest combined affinity rankingis a preferred subset; crop the image, wherein the cropped imageincludes the preferred subset, and does not include subsets that are notidentified as preferred subsets; and generate for simultaneous displaythe cropped image with the textual identifier.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the control circuitry is further configured, when determiningthe identity of each respective person depicted in each respectiveportion of the plurality of portions, to perform facial recognition oneach respective depiction of a person of the image.
 8. The system ofclaim 6, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:generate for display a sufficient number of the plurality of subsetscomprising adjacent portions of the image to satisfy a specified aspectratio requirement.
 9. The system of claim 6, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to: recognize textual content in theimage; and generate for simultaneous display the textual content withthe subset with the highest combined affinity ranking.
 10. The system ofclaim 6, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:determine characteristics of the subset with the highest combinedaffinity ranking; determine, based on the characteristics of the subsetwith the highest combined affinity ranking, optimal characteristics forfeatures surrounding the depiction of the person in the respectiveportion; and alter characteristics of the features surrounding thesubset with the highest combined affinity ranking to reflect the optimalcharacteristics.